Daniel Bolton

Daniel Bolton
Born	1793
Died	16 May 1860(1860-05-16) (aged 66–67) Cape Town, Cape of Good Hope[1]
Buried	St George's cemetery, Cape Town, South Africa[2]
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Branch	Board of Ordnance British Army
Years of service	1811–1860
Rank	Major General
Service number	459
Unit	Corps of Royal Engineers
Commands held	CRE, Harwich, 1846–47[3][4] CRE, New Zealand, 1847–53[5] CRE, Cape of Good Hope, 1855–60[6]
Campaigns	Peninsular War, 1813–14 San Sebastián, 1813 Netherlands, 1814–15[7] France, 1815–18
Memorials	Major's Hill Park, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada[8] Peninsula and Waterloo Campaigns 1808–15 Memorial, Rochester Cathedral, Rochester, Kent[9]
Spouse(s)	Ann Lawrence Hawkes (widow) ​ ​ (m. 1825⁠–⁠1854)​
Children	John Lawrence Bolton[10][11] Augusta Bolton
Other work	Member of the Executive Council, Province of New Ulster, New Zealand, 1851–[12] Magistrate for the Islands of New Zealand, 1853[13]

Major General Daniel Bolton (1793 – 16 May 1860) was an English military engineer of the Corps of Royal Engineers,^[1] who served in the Peninsular War (1813–1814), Netherlands Campaign (1814–1815), army of occupation in France (1815–1818), in Canada (1823–1843), particularly as superintending engineer in the construction of the Rideau Canal (1832–1843)^[14] and as Commanding Royal Engineer at Harwich (1846–1847), New Zealand (1847–1853)
and Cape of Good Hope (1855–1860).

He also collected fossil, plant, insect and seashell specimens, particularly for the scientific collections under Sir William Jackson Hooker and Joseph Dalton Hooker at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, William Henry Harvey at the Herbarium, Trinity College Dublin, and Francis Walker at the British Museum.

Career[]

Daniel Bolton was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers, Board of Ordnance, on 14 December 1811, and promoted Lieutenant on 1 July 1812.^[1]: 20

Europe[]

Peninsular War[]

Bolton is said to have been "present, among other actions, at the siege and storm of St Sebastian".^[15] The Commanding Royal Engineer, Sir Richard Fletcher, was killed in the final assault of the fortress on 31 August; thereafter the siege was conducted by Lieutenant Colonel John Fox Burgoyne, RE, who was severely wounded in that effort which ended on 8 September 1813.^[16]: 193 Elsewhere, Bolton is noted as serving at the Peninsula from October 1813 to the end of the war in 1814.^{[17][1]: 20}

Netherlands Campaign[]

In May 1815, Bolton was lodged at Ghent, where Louis XVIII resided after quitting Paris in March, but as his superior had left without passing on instructions, he and his fellow engineers had little to do. Sir George Wood, commanding artillery, who had fallen in with them there, communicated their situation to Colonel Smyth. In consequence, Lieutenant John Sperling, RE, took charge from 1 April, with the two engineer officers, an assistant engineer and 250 men, to construct two earthen redoubts to defend the bridge over the river Scheldt and reinstate part of the city's misshapen rampart. The redoubts would burden the enemy with having to build a river crossing, as well as serve as a rallying point for troops retreating from the frontier. When Sperling departed on 10 April, Bolton took charge of the works and now 2000 workmen until the arrival of Captain Harris.^{[18][19]: 116–118} The Battle of Waterloo was fought on 18 June 1815, some 43 miles away.

Occupation of France[]

Following the Napoleonic Wars and agreements to the Treaty of Paris in November 1815, Bolton served with the army of occupation in France to 1818.^[1]: 20

Canada[]

Trilobite Arctinurus boltoni (Paradoxus boltoni)

Some five years after France, Bolton left London for Canada on 13 April 1823, landing at Quebec from the brig Susan on 23 May 1823.^[20] Under Lieutenant Colonel Elias Walker Durnford, Commanding Royal Engineer, he carried on works from Quebec City to Kingston, Ontario, including Fort Wellington at Prescott.^[21][22][23] In the course of the works he discovered a new species of trilobite in fossil limestone. It was described by John Jeremiah Bigsby who named it Paradoxus boltoni, "after its discoverer, Lieut. Bolton, Royal Engineers", in 1825. The specimen had been found at Lockport, New York.^[24]

England and Ireland[]

Home again in England, Daniel Bolton married Ann Lawrence Hawkes, daughter of the late Judge John Lawrance of New York, widow of the late George Wright Hawkes, and mother of Adelaide and Wootton Wright Hawkes,^[25][26] at St Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham, Warwickshire, on Wednesday, 23 February 1825.^[27] Soon after, on 7 June 1825, he advanced to the rank of 2nd Captain. Their first child, John Lawrence Bolton, was born on 7 December 1825 at Drumcovitt House in the Parish of Banagher, County Londonderry, Ireland^[10]

Legacy[]

Plant and animal species named after Daniel Bolton:

• Arctinurus boltoni (Paradoxus boltoni), a trilobite described and named by John Jeremiah Bigsby in 1825^[24]
• Myadora boltoni, a New Zealand mollusc described and named by Edgar Albert Smith in 1880^[28]
• Leioproctus boltoni, a New Zealand bee described and named Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell in 1904^[29]
• , an African fern collected at Grahamstown, Cape of Good Hope, named by Hooker^[30]
• Bonatea boltonii, a southern African orchid named by William Henry Harvey 1860^[31]

He is remembered in Ottawa in Major's Hill Park, a prominent downtown park in Ottawa. It was the site of the former residence of Lieutenant Colonel John By, and Major Daniel Bolton and his family.

Publications[]

• Bolton, Daniel (1840). "X. Account of the Dam Constructed Across the Waste Channel at Long Island, on the Rideau Canal, in 1836" (PDF). Papers on Subjects Connected with the Duties of the Corps of Royal Engineers. London: John Weale. 4: 131–135.
• Anonymous: Daniel Bolton's sister (1860). The Rainbow: Various Pieces on Religious and Other Subjects. Bath: Binns & Goodwin.

Bibliography[]

• Godley, Eric John (December 2003). "Biographical Notes (52): Daniel Bolton (c. 1793–1860)" (PDF). New Zealand Botanical Society Newsletter. No. 74. New Zealand Botanical Society. pp. 14–16.
• Plug, C. (2020). "Bolton, Maj-Gen Daniel (plant collection)". S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
• Tulloch, Judith (1981). "The Rideau Canal: Defence, Transport and Recreation" (PDF). History and Archaeology 50. Parks Canada – via digital edition, Friends of the Rideau, Smiths Falls, Ontario, 2009.

References[]